I feel as though I am on Cloud 9! I just received a phone call from MACUL. This past June, I applied for a MACUL Technology Grant and the phone call brought the best news! I GOT IT! I am so excited.  The grant will help fund equipment that will assist my students in their collaborative project, Global Explorers, this fall. The explorers are connecting and collaborating with a peer group in Bucaramanga, Colombia. I truly feel honored that my project was chosen. In September, I will take four students to our Capitol Building in Lansing, Michigan to present this project to state politicians in the AT&T MACUL Student Technology Showcase. In March, as part of the grant award, I will present this project at the MACUL Conference. I am so excited that I am beyond words right now.

Sadly, the last class of Webcast Academy came to a close. But all is not finished. I am in no way ready to graduate and I am completely OK with that. When I think back to five weeks ago when I started this new adventure, I was thinking that I would be ‘finished’ in five weeks and another ‘badge’ under my belt. Wow! Did I miss the point but quickly gained it back. The process of the past few weeks has been a challenge and a fantastic, awesome learning experience and I am in no way, ready to be finished with it. Not because I didn’t do the assignments or finish my work. That’s not the reason at all. The connections that I have made in the last few weeks have been so incredibly awesome, that I am not ready to give that up. At any given moment, someone from the academy was online in the Skypechat. Everyone was so willing to help and give their thoughts or share their experiences, frustrations, and successes. I have met people who really understood and cared that I was succeeding.  I feel that the connections that I have made in the last few weeks, will continue long after this last show ends. This is what it is all about. The connections.  The collaborations.  The learning.  The growing.  The experiences. The challenges. The successes. Oh, did I mention the connections? I love this.

During this summer, I have been working on an easily-accesible listing of resources for teachers and students. I have created Teacher Tech Tools on PB Wiki. I will continue to update as I come across great resources, (which are usually supplied from the many edubloggers that I follow through Bloglines.

There is another blogging meme taking place in the blogosphere and I was tagged by Colleen from Math Playground.First, the rules:
1. Post these rules before you give your facts.
2. List 8 random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged. 

OK So here it goes:

1.       I was born in Wichita, Kansas but moved to Ohio and then Michigan. I have not been back to Kansas since 1969.

2.      I played the guitar and drums as I was growing up. I was the only female drummer in high school.

3.      I used to have a long hair calico cat named Brandi Alexander, which was named after an alcoholic drink. When I named the cat I was VERY underage and had just heard the name of the drink from an adult.

4.      My dog, Bailey, is a cow. (Actually, she is the very large pup -Chocolate Lab, and towers over her mom, Snickers.)

5.      I began teaching in an elementary school later in life. I was still in college while my kids were young.

6.      I raise butterflies, and I actually like creepy crawlies like Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and Giant Millipedes (which I have in my classroom).

7.      Although I have traveled quite a bit, my dream place of visiting the Monarch Sanctuaries in Mexico, has never occurred…yet.

8.      I am addicted to my coffee drink-6 shots espresso, chocolate, caramel, and hazelnut over ice! (It’s like a liquid Snickers bar!)

So many bloggers have already been tagged, so I will tag only a few.

Jim Dornberg, Jim Wenzloff, Kevin Hodgson, Steve Dembo, Ben Rimes, Kevin Jarrett,

As a lot of you know, the last month has been rough for me. Quite a few of you have been very helpful and patient with me, offering me words of wisdom, letting me talk incessantly, and knowing when I needed to be quiet. For this I thank you. You have been a tremendous help. This Tuesday I will be walking into my best friend’s office to help her husband clean it out. It will be one of the hardest things I will do but I also feel that this will be one more step in making this seem more real to me. At the end of the month, we return to work, and our building will be missing 2 very dynamic educators. It will be rough, but together we will get through it. Someone suggested a book for me, and I felt the need to pass this on. If any of you have ever lost someone, you may want to read Don Piper’s book, “90 Minutes in Heaven”. This is a true story of a man, who after being crushed by a semi-truck, died, went to Heaven, and then made the journey back to earth. It has been very calming for me to read and some of you may find the need to read it as well. I truly believe that when we lose someone that we love, they remain here with us, at least in memory and spirits. There have been many times that I have felt my dad or my brother’s presence over the last few years. I know that I will still feel my friend along my side as I begin a new school year. She will help guide me as I teach, just as she guided me when she was alive.